by Reid, Stacy
Richard despised the weak feeling that assailed him and turned his mouth dry. Ah Christ. Please, God. “Don’t say it,” he said gruffly. “Don’t you fucking say it, Elliot.”
“She is very ill,” he whispered. “She is fevered and senseless. The doctors have bled her twice, but there is no improvement. The only news they have to report is that we must prepare ourselves.”
Raw fear blasted through Richard. A snarl of denial spilled into the room, shocking him. “What the hell are you talking about? Prepare ourselves?”
“The doctors said—”
“I do not give a damn what the doctors said. Evie will not die. Where is she?”
“She is still at Rosette Park. We did not move her.”
Richard launched into motion, grabbing his coat and hat, calling for his stallion. Within a few minutes, he was away from Kencourt, Elliot following closely on his heels. Fear held him in a grip he had never endured before. His brother Francis had been robust and strong, and a fever had claimed his life. For five days, he had battled for his life, and the doctors had bled him, too, to purge his blood, and he had still died. What chance did Evie have being so fragile?
It was all his fault.
He rode along the country road, like a madman, bargaining with God the entire time. A lesson from his younger days in attending church roared in his mind.
“Prayer without ceasing. In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”
He thanked God for Evie, her faith and her trust when even his parents had abandoned him. He thanked God for her smiles, her warmth and generosity of heart with his children, and the love she had for his black heart. Richard’s entire journey, he prayed unceasingly for Evie to recover. He would become a broken man without her and nothing could ever put him back, but more so, she deserved a chance at happiness with a family of her own. Her joy and grace of spirit could not be snuffed out. Not yet, not for another fifty years or more.
Less than an hour later, he reached Rosette Hall. He had launched from his stallion before the horse had fully stopped and dropped the reins. Elliot only arrived seconds behind him.
“Richard,” Elliot yelled.
He ignored him and clambered up the front steps. He wrenched the door open without knocking.
Adel, who had been climbing the stairs with flowers in her hands, faltered. “Lord Westfall!”
“Where is Evie?”
“I was taking these to her rooms,” she said, holding up the vase.
“Is she…” His throat closed. “I must see her.” He hurried from the hallway and started to bound up the stairs, only to halt as her father stood on the upper steps, his hands fisted at his side. “You damn blackguard, you will not enter Evie’s chamber.”
“Do not make an enemy of me,” Richard snapped, low and hard. “If you try to keep her from me…” His throat burned, and he hardly gave a fuck when tears pricked behind his lids. Richard did not care if he seemed weak because he was nearly insensate with fear and desperate to see her before she…
No…Evie cannot die.
Lord Gladstone’s eyes widened. “You love her,” he said, shock echoing in his voice.
She owns me.
“Remove yourself from my path. I need to see her.”
“Father,” Elliot said from behind. “Evie would want to see him.”
The earl hesitated and then stepped aside. “She is in the third room on the right.”
“Thank you,” Richard said, then rushed to the chamber.
He gently opened the door and entered, with Elliot his shadow. The ache in Richard’s chest became a physical thing, and as he strode to her bedside, there was no ease in its tightening grip. Ah Christ, now it seemed so damnable foolish how he had kept her at arm’s length, the one woman to have been his constant dream companion for so many years. He couldn’t touch the thought of life without her.
A maid who had been pressing a compress to Evie’s forehead glanced up.
“Let me,” he said. “Get some ice and more cool water.”
She responded to his command without question, and with a quick bob, hurried from the room.
He drew a chair from the window to her bedside and lowered himself into it. Evie appeared so damned vulnerable, a pain he had never felt before in his life arrowed through his heart. “Evie…” His voice was hoarse, his throat felt raw. He lightly encircled her wrist. Her pulse was weak, yet fluttering so fast. Her skin felt so damn hot. The red marks left from the device they used to bleed her filled him with despair and rage in equal measure.
In all the years we have been friends, this is what you truly believe in me as a person?
Richard closed his eyes against the whisper of her hurt.
“You are haunting me,” he said softly.
Elliot stiffened, but Richard hardly gave a damn.
“You truly care,” Elliot murmured. “Why did you not offer marriage…after…” His teeth snapped together as if he couldn’t bear admitting out loud his sister was no longer chaste.
Self-loathing ripped through Richard’s gut. “I feared I would ruin her. You know my reputation, and you know how bloody my hands have been. While I hardly give a damn when polite society tries to besmirch my honor and reputation, it would gut Evie. How could she withstand a man like me in her life? She is truly gentle…and so wonderful…and kind…and if they hurt her, I would make them suffer for it.”
A resigned sigh echoed from Elliot. “You are right. Evie is very weak and inconstant, she wouldn’t have lasted a month as your marchioness. Her days would have been spent weeping to our mother—”
“Evie is not weak,” Richard said, low and hard. “Hell, she never truly shied away from my dastardly reputation. It was like she chose not to see it, ignoring polite society and doing what she pleased and damned the consequences.”
The awareness of it settled in his gut like a boulder. He’d wanted to protect her from her own folly and hopeless generosity of spirit. Evie had never really possessed the air and pretentiousness of the ladies of the ton. She stood firm even when his own family had shunned him publicly. He never wanted her to endure the tearing loss he had felt in those first several months, where he had longed to sit and argue with his father, endure the clucking of his mother to find a wife, and his sister…how he had missed her. Yet at the heart of that…he simply hadn’t trusted in the gentle strength that had been staring at him since he’d met her at sixteen.
He scrubbed a hand over his face. Could I really have been so blind?
“Do not speak of your sister as weak, especially now when she is fighting to be with us.”
Elliot’s lips barely moved in a smile. “I was simply checking to see if you knew her worth and strength. Evie would never abandon you, even if our mother and father were to exile her. You are her happiness, and I’ve known it a long time.”
The softest of moans came from her, and he hoped it was not distress because she heard his voice. The depth of emotion Richard felt for her was somewhat frightening. He’d once advised Wolverton to hold onto his duchess, instead of even wasting a second of time he could spend with her. If only Richard had taken his own advice. “Evie, please fight…”
The maid returned to the room with chips of ice. He took the bowl, collected the ice, and wetted the dry cracks of her lips for several minutes.
He then spent the next hour sponging the skin he had access to, telling her stories of his children, asking her for forgiveness. Not once did the fear leave his heart, for he saw no improvement. The doctor returned, and when he tried to bleed her again to reduce a supposed inflammation in her blood, Richard grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and threw him from the house to the shock of everyone.
Wolverton’s own doctor had been summoned, but because Dr. Greaves had been in Cornwall visiting his family, the hopes were that he would be arriving today. The duchess came and went from Evie’s chamber, taking turns in sponging and singing softly to her. Adel’s voice was ter
ribly unmusical, but he believed it provided some relief to Evie.
Almost six hours had passed since he arrived at Rosette Park and not once had he left Evie’s chamber. Her father sat with her for a while, reading to her, even Elliot reasoned with her for a while, and Richard simply remained a shadow at her bedside. Her mother was prostrated with worry and had taken to her own bed. Even there she had to be occasionally revived with smelling salts. The countess was too frail to visit Evie.
For the first time since he arrived, he was alone with her.
He held her hand in his, her hot flesh scalding against his hand. “I am not the man I thought I was. I never thought I was a coward. I knew I adored you and because of fear…a fear that seems so damnably stupid now, I hurt you.” He pressed a kiss to her knuckles and fought the urge to kneel in despair. “Fight this, Evie. Please fight. Your family cannot lose you. I…I…cannot lose you.” The idea she would succumb as his brother did sent chills deep into his heart.
A terrible silence lingered, and he had no sense of how much time had passed before the barest whisper of sound rode the air. He tensed and listened keenly.
“Richard?”
Relief slammed into him, and he ran a shaking hand through his hair. “Don’t move,” he murmured as she stirred.
“I hurt…my heart hurts.” A faint whisper escaped her lips, and a tear leaked from beneath her closed lids.
“Evie, forgive me.”
She fidgeted and seemed agitated. Sweat was pouring from her in torrents. Instinctively he got into the bed next to her, hoping to calm her. He cradled her in his arms, and she quieted. He held her for the longest time, simply recalling the sense of peace and contentment he’d always enjoyed in her presence, and the quick, joyous smile she’d always given him whenever she saw him. Evie would be well, even if he had to bargain with the devil himself. He stared at the canopy overhead, not daring to shift, even when his shoulder started to cramp in discomfort. Instead, he held himself still, careful not to disturb her fitful slumber, and sank his thoughts deep into his well of memories of her, where only laughter, sweetness, kindness, and passion resided.
A soft murmur stirred him. He opened his eyes to look at the top of her head. She was still nestled in his arms. Her skin was cool and clammy. Her fever had broken.
She shifted her head, and he could now see her perfect face. A smile twisted his lips as he thought how beautiful and peaceful she looked. The worst has passed. Her lids flickered open, and when she saw him, her breath hitched, and tears ran down her cheeks. She pierced his soul with the pain in her eyes. He had been the one to put those torturing shadows there.
You’ve broken me…
And at that moment, he understood how he had betrayed the gentle trust and love she had always had in him. It wasn’t just her love he had damaged; he’d broken her trust, her pride, her naivety. It gutted him to think of her heart growing cold and distant, detached from the very notion of love as how he had been fashioned after Aurelia. “Forgive me,” he rasped. “I…Evie…”
She tried pushing him away from her, but she hadn’t the strength. “Go away,” she croaked weakly, her lids once again fluttering closed, and her chest rising, this time with even breaths.
Gritting his teeth against the agony lancing through him, he nodded firmly, slid from the bed, and went downstairs. Evie was spared, she was given a second chance so he could give her all the love he had withheld these past six years. He was in love with her, his best friend, and despite all the complications of his life, he would make it work because he knew she loved him in return. He only hoped the damage of his actions could be undone.
He arrived at the parlor where her family and the duke and duchess had gathered.
Adel glanced up with a smile. “Dr. Greaves is on his way. Edmond has sent a carriage for him at the coaching inn. He will be here in less than an hour.”
Richard nodded. “Her fever has broken.”
There was a flurry of movement as everyone lurched to their feet. “Are you certain?” her father demanded gruffly.
“I am.” Then without waiting, he turned and left.
He couldn’t imagine her forgiving him, but he had to try. He would be a damned fool to know he loved her so much, and not do everything in his power to reclaim her love and melt the wall of ice she was already erecting around her heart.
Chapter Fifteen
Two weeks had passed since Evie had woken to see the worried faces of her family peering down at her, and to learn the ton was celebrating another scandal: her dreadful and ill-conceived kidnapping of Richard, or the bit they knew—being caught alone with him. The scandal of it had been too much for her mother, who had suffered several fainting spells. The doorknocker to their townhouse had been removed as if the family was out of town. Papa had thought it wise to withdraw from town to their smaller estate in Derbyshire. Even then, some of society still had found it necessary to call upon them.
She had regained her strength in the week of bed rest that had been forced upon her by a fretting mother, and she had since spent most of her days baking in the kitchens and riding across the lanes of their manor in quiet introspection and avoiding curious callers, only admitting a few friends. The Christmas season was bearing down on them, and Evie felt little cheer in her heart to help her mother prepare for their annual festive ball. She was making an effort for them and was quite determined to present a pleasant if not overly happy countenance. Anything to hide the pain inside her that grew daily, instead of abating. The door to the parlor opened, and she glanced up, arching a brow at the puckered frown on her mother’s face.
“What is it, Mamma?” Evie asked, pushing aside the diary in which she recorded her experiments in the kitchen.
“There is a letter from Kencourt Manor,” she said, her lips pinching.
“Thank you, Mamma.” She opened the drawer to the small writing desk, took up the letter opener, and slit along the elegant seal. A quick scan of the contents pulled a smile to her lips.
Dear Lady Evie,
I’m happy to come to tea. May I bring Jack with me? And my books? We shall read my stories.
Emily
“And who is it from?” her mother queried archly, sitting on the crème colored sofa closest to Evie.
She folded the correspondence and braced against her mother’s reaction. “It is from Lady Emily. I sent a note last week inviting her to tea. I’ve just received her reply.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Lady Emily, Mamma. She is Lord Westfall’s daughter. She is full of charm and wit. She has the eyes of her father, and his smile…”
Her mother’s eyes widened, and Evie flushed, forcing down the hurt in her heart.
“She is a beautiful child, and I promised her we would be the dearest of friends. I intend to keep that promise because she is quite delightful.”
“What nonsense you speak. Have you no care for your reputation? You will not make a spectacle of yourself and of this family!”
Evie stood and walked to the windows, watching as the gardeners raked the fallen leaves from the grounds. Soon those many limbs on the tress would be bare, seemingly bleak and dreary until they bloomed again. Much like how she imagined life would be for her. The loss of Richard made her feel empty, bleak, but Evie had no intention of wallowing in the sense of despair. She would heal, and eventually, all the dreams she’d had of being his lover and his wife would fade from the dark corners of her heart where she had recently pushed them. One day she would feel happy again. “My reputation has already been broken, Mamma, and I daresay it is not as dreadful as I had imagined.”
“Evie!”
She faced her mother. “I am ashamed to admit to myself that there was a bit of truth in what…in what I had been told by a friend.” It was too difficult to speak his name. Their fight had been so wretched and final. The mere memory had pain twisting its vicious claws through her. A few steady breaths centered her. “In the time since little Emily was found, I’ve nev
er paid a call upon her. Though my lips did not condemn her like those in society did, nor did my heart believe her to be vile and beneath our notice, my indifference and caution, when she is just an innocent child, made me just as callous.”
“That is most certainly not true,” her mother replied, with clear affront.
“I’ll not be persuaded to be unkind because the ton says so. If you do not admit her here, we shall meet in Hyde Park.”
Her mother’s eyes flashed. “You are bent on damaging all your chances of an alliance. We are fortunate society is apt to place blame for your disgrace on Lord Westfall’s shoulders where they belong. The papers are more sympathetic to us, for they understand what a black heart that man has. There is still interest in your hand, and you will not jeopardize that, young lady.”
“I will not be pressured into a marriage with a man whom I do not love. On that score, you beseech me to wed in vain, for I will not succumb to such a life.”
“You ungrateful child,” her mother sobbed. “We are on the brink of ruin, your father’s debts—”
“I will work if need be, and we will still be far better off than many, Mamma.”
Her mother gasped and clutched at her chest, her overwrought theatrics pulling a smile to Evie’s lips. “I will do all in my power to relieve what we are facing, but I will not endure a lifetime of unhappiness for it,” she said hoarsely.
“We are thousands in debt, and we will be made to suffer because of your dreaded willfulness. Whatever did I do to deserve a daughter like you?” She wilted on the sofa, pressing her hand to her forehead as if pained.
“Then Papa, you, Elliot, and I will work to come to a solution without sacrificing each other’s happiness for it. We are not poor. I’ve glimpsed poverty, and this is not it.” She waved toward the open window overlooking their opulent lawns. “There are people at this every moment lying in ditches and alleys without shelter, and winter is upon us. Children on the streets are starving, without food or any type of succor. We are not suffering. We have very expensive art and silver we can sell to settle the most pressing debts. Papa has unentailed property, lands in the country, a castle in Scotland, and a manor house in Cornwall. Mamma, they can be sold.”
